There is a grossness in the conceptions of my countrymen; they will not be convinced that any good thing may consist with what they call idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil of a young man who neither studies physic, law, nor gospel, nor opens a store, nor takes to farming, but manifests an incomprehensible disposition to be satisfied with what his father left him.

In a 3-page essay titled In Praise of Idleness, Karel Čapek described idleness as follows: (1) "idleness is not wasting time"; (2) "idleness is not the mother of wickedness"; (3) "idleness is not laziness".

By means of it they have built up a vested interest in idleness which last year, despite the fact that almost all the economic indices stood high above the normal level represented by 1926, cost the various governments of the Dominion far in excess of $50,000,000.